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Netflix Hit True Crime Series Gets Season 4 Green Light Ahead of Season 3
Netflix is making a significant long-term investment in its hit Monster franchise, with a fourth season already in the early stages of development, as revealed Variety. The series, which has become a flagship for the streamer’s true-crime offerings, will reportedly turn its focus to the legendary 1892 trial of Lizzie Borden. This forward-planning is a major vote of confidence in the anthology, which has consistently delivered massive viewership numbers, beginning with the record-breaking Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and continuing with the highly successful Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Netflix is currently working on the next installment of the series, officially titled Monster: The Original Monster, which will explore the life of killer Ed Gein.
The story of Lizzie Borden has remained a fixture of American macabre folklore for over a century. On the sweltering morning of August 4, 1892, Andrew Borden and his second wife, Abby, were found hacked to death by a hatchet-like weapon. Suspicion fell almost immediately on Andrew’s 32-year-old daughter, Lizzie, who gave police strange and conflicting accounts of her whereabouts. The initial investigation was notoriously clumsy, with the crime scene being contaminated and key evidence mishandled, a factor that would prove decisive in the subsequent trial and contribute to the case’s unresolved nature for decades to come.
The trial of Lizzie Borden, which began in June 1893, became a national spectacle, pitting the shocking gore of the crime against the pure image of the accused. Her defense team successfully portrayed her as a gentle, church-going woman of good standing, incapable of committing such a savage act. In addition, a jury of men, influenced by the societal norms of the era, struggled to convict a woman of her class. Plus, the prosecution’s case was entirely circumstantial, lacking a murder weapon with any trace of blood or any blood-stained clothing, a point underscored when Lizzie’s friend testified that Lizzie had burned a dress days after the murders, claiming it was stained with paint. Despite her eventual acquittal, Lizzie Borden was ostracized by the Fall River community, forced to live out her life as a pariah.
Before Season 4, What’s Season 3 of Monster About?
Before Netflix explores the Borden mystery, the confirmed third season, Monster: The Original Monster, will dramatize the life and crimes of Ed Gein, the Wisconsin killer and grave robber whose case influenced numerous horror icons. Gein’s horrific activities were discovered in 1957 after the disappearance of a local hardware store owner, Bernice Worden. When police investigated Gein’s isolated farmhouse, they discovered furniture and keepsakes crafted from human body parts, including skin, bones, and skulls. While only confirmed to have murdered two women, Worden and a tavern owner named Mary Hogan, Gein admitted to making countless trips to local cemeteries to exhume recently buried female corpses to fuel his gruesome creations.
Gein is considered the prototype for some of the most enduring villains in cinematic history, including Norman Bates of Psycho, Leatherface of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs. The third season of Monster will reportedly explore this phenomenon directly, examining how the media frenzy surrounding Gein’s case transformed a disturbed man into the first modern “celebrity” serial killer. Co-creator Ryan Murphy has identified Gein as the origin point for the public’s morbid fascination with the genre, making him the “Original Monster” of the title. The Original Monster will star Charlie Hunnam as Gein, Laurie Metcalf as his mother Augusta, and, pivotally, Tom Hollander as director Alfred Hitchcock.
The first two seasons of the Monster anthology are currently available on Netflix.
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The post Netflix Hit True Crime Series Gets Season 4 Green Light Ahead of Season 3 appeared first on ComicBook.com.
